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u/the_axe_effect
10 hours ago
Stock Analysis
My attempt at Google valuation
Hi All,
So I tried to evaluate google using a simple DCF Model and would be grateful if someone can feedback and give their opinions.
Originally I tried to use Prof Ashwath Damodarans excel template But I found it to be too complicated. In Short this is what I did
A) I listed all the assumptions that I made for Discount/Growth rate calcualtions
B) I looked at the Q1+Q2 2026 Consolidated 10-Q report to find the
FCFE = Cash from operations - Capex + Debt Issued -Debt Paid.
C) Historically Q3+Q4 for google has \~ 15% Higher FCFE than Q1+Q2 because their Ad Business get a boost during Holiday Season, I used this to estimate the total 2026 FCFE
E) Assumed \~ 12 % CAGR FCFE growth which I beleive is a very conservative estimate
F) The FCFE right now of course doesnt take into account the insane debt that Google is undertaking for AI buildout, I am assuming that Google will take \~ 700 Billion more debt in next 3 years and they will need to pay this down, For Years 2 through 8 I assumed that Google will pay down this Debt at the rate of 100 Billion per year and I subtracted this from the FCFE.
700 B is an Morgan stanley estimate that I saw for Google AI Spend
G) Discount all cash flows and estimate terminal values and divide the total stocks to get the present value of Google stock to be \~ 492 Billion which means there is a \~ 28% upside and I think the stock is a Buy based on this
I Also belive this is a very conservative estimate, The last 10 year CAGR of Google is \~18 % and with AI related margin improvements in Ads/ Cloud Growth/ Moonshots like Waymo/verily etc, it is very possible for Google to maintain same CAGR even though its a mature company.
With \~ 18% CAGR Loft estimtiate, The present value would be \~ 820 B (This was my original valuation but it felt stupidly high haha so I lowered my CAGR)
Here is a link to the excel sheet where I did the DCF calcualtions:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/c9edyxzrjsoj7rn/Google\_DCF-V3.xls/file